A helicopter parent refers to a type of parent who’s always hovering over their child’s every move. If you find yourself staying on top of every action your child does and every choice they make, and area always nearby, paying close attention to every activity and interaction, you may be helicopter parenting.
Do you find yourself doing things for your child all the time? Such as their homework, fighting their battles, keeping them on a short leash, not allowing them to fail at anything. Are you really being a protective parent or inhibiting their ability to develop independence and confidence? The issue with this type of parenting is that helicopter parents may try to impede a child’s freedom out of fear. Their own fears are not allowing them to be more relaxed parents. These choices may be inherent fears from how they grew up as children themselves. More often than not, helicopter parents do not see an issue with their parenting choices. It may only become more evident when their children are older and then in turn are not very responsive to constructive feedback at school or standing up for themselves with their peers. Once this happens it becomes extremely difficult to reset and correct their inability to react effectively.
Let’s face it, we all want to make sure our children are always safe, happy and content. But keeping them in a parental bubble where everything is done for them might just have the opposite effect in the long run. They will eventually need to make their own decisions, learn from their own mistakes and become capable and functioning adults in today’s world.
So how do you change your parenting style? Start small, by letting them tie their own shoes, clean up after themselves, model the behavior you would want for them to exhibit while accepting they may do things differently than you. And most importantly let them make mistakes, as small as they may be, as they will only learn that way. And by all means, allow yourself patience and grace during the process as this is not an easy task to take on. Setting all those fears and anxieties you may have aside will be a huge personal challenge for you yourself will also grow along your children.